Programs

JACL Pacific Southwest District Programs

Founded in 1929, the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) is the nation’s largest membership-based Asian American community organization with over 12,000 members in 112 chapters throughout the country. Over its 81 years of existence, JACL was instrumental in the protection of civil rights for Japanese Americans and other immigrant communities, especially during the incarceration of the community during World War II. In later years, in one of the largest and most famous campaigns in the history of the Japanese American community, JACL was a key player in the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 which issued a Presidential apology to all Japanese American incarcerees as well as a $20,000 payment in reparations.

The newly-formed Nikkei LGBTQ Initiative aims to create a community supportive of the needs of Nikkei LGBTQ-identified individuals, as well as their family and friends, through educational programming and collective organizing.